In response to my last post, my dad offered some of his perspective to me on Facebook. We hold very different views about which we each feel strongly. Although he has had a general sense of this division for some time, I imagine that my recent boldness causes him a deep sadness about my spiritual status. I don’t wish for this, as I know his concern is genuine. He should know that my opposing beliefs do not make him seem an idiot or unintellectual to me. He has chosen his beliefs for his own personal reasons. I also hope he does not despair that he somehow messed up as a father and teacher to me. I see an overall goodness in him, and I thank him for using his sense of human compassion.

I fully honor the decisions he must have made at some point NOT to follow the highly immoral role-models in Christian and Jewish scriptures. He doesn’t act on thoughts of child sacrifice that might pop into his head. He doesn’t murder his neighbors when a voice from above said that their land is now his. He doesn’t own concubines. He doesn’t own slaves. He doesn’t offer to burn his children so that God will do him a favor. He doesn’t offer his daughters to be raped by the locals in order to protect visiting male strangers from being homosexually defiled. He has never slaughtered entire races because they were simply not God’s chosen people. He doesn’t kill the first-born of an entire nation to make a point. He didn’t sacrifice his son to save the world he made…. from himself. My dad is not an egotistical, greedy faith healer or a womans health clinic bomber or a suicide-cult leader, Muslim jihadist, child-molesting priest, or a religious-fundamentalism-guided lawmaker. He shows real love and care for his family and appreciates the natural world. All these things are true because he accepts a common human ethic while rejecting the moral extremities that are often demanded by religion. Through his initial example, I have also learned these same standards, and although someone in his position is required accept these real and tangible actions as an undeniable part of God’s perfect and holy plan for our existence, his actions do not add to this list of atrocities. He is a decent human. For this, he has my respect.